Implementing Symmetric Treatment of Financial Contracts in Bankruptcy and Bank Resolution
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By Edward J. Janger (Brooklyn Law School) and John A.E. Pottow (University of Michigan Law School)

Financial contracts, such as swaps, repos, and options, are excepted from the Bankruptcy Code’s automatic stay by so-called “derivative safe harbors.” The Lehman Brothers bankruptcy provides a graphic illustration of how this device makes it almost impossible for non-bank financial firms, or other firms with significant derivative exposure, to restructure in chapter 11. Without a stay, non-debtor counterparties may run for the exits by exercising early termination rights, demanding payment, and offsetting obligations, thereby draining assets from the struggling debtor in a destructive rush.

The resolution regime for banks takes a different approach. It imposes a short stay on financial contract termination to permit the orderly transfer of a failed bank’s derivative portfolio intact to a solvent bank. This approach has been used for decades to preserve the value of financial contracts and to minimize the systemic disruption occasioned by bank failures. It has been extended contractually to cover many non-bank SIFIs through the relatively recent ISDA Resolution Stay Protocol. There are, however, significant gaps in the contractual regime. Non-SIFI financial institutions are not covered, and neither are non-financial firms that may have significant derivatives exposure, and may also be systemically important.

Our article offers a road-map for translating and generalizing the “short-stay” regime used for banks into chapter 11. The key to this synthesis is the bankruptcy concept of “adequate assurance of future performance,” provided through a commonplace bankruptcy device—debtor-in-possession financing. This financing can backstop the debtor’s timely performance of its financial obligations. We note that our approach would facilitate use of the “Single Point of Entry” strategy for restructuring financial firms in bankruptcy. Our approach also would, we contend, bring greater stability to financial markets, preserve otherwise evaporating value for insolvent debtors with a significant book of derivatives, and ultimately make it possible for many more firms to restructure in bankruptcy.

The full article, published in 10 Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial and Commercial Law 155 (2015), is available here.

 

This article was recently published in the Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial and Commercial Law as part of a symposium volume entitled: The Treatment of Financial Contracts in Bankruptcy and Bank Resolution. The volume includes papers by Riz Mokal, Anna Gelpern and Eric Gerding, Adam Levitin, and Irit Mevorach.

The Roundtable has also posted on this topic previously. See Morrison, Roe, and Sontchi, “Rolling Back the Repo Safe Harbors” and Murphy and Smith, “Bankruptcy Code with No Repo Safe Harbor—An Evaluation.”

The ISDA 2014 Resolution Stays Protocol and the Bankruptcy Code Safe Harbors
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By David Geen and Samantha Riley of the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA)

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (“ISDA”) recently published the 2014 Resolution Stay Protocol (the “Protocol”). Developed by a working group comprised of both dealer and buy-side market participants in consultation with regulators from France, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, the Protocol has been hailed by the Financial Stability Board as a “crucial element[] of the policy framework to end too-big-to-fail.” In addition to addressing the failure of systemically important financial institutions (“SIFIs”) under special resolution regimes, such as the Orderly Liquidation Authority provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act or the EU Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive, Section 2 of the Protocol also addresses the failure of SIFIs under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code (the “Code”).

Section 2 of the Protocol was developed to support SIFI resolution strategies under the Code where operating companies, such as banks and broker dealers, are kept out of insolvency proceedings altogether, while affiliates, such as a parent holding company, are restructured through Chapter 11 proceedings. Section 2 introduces a short, temporary stay on the exercise of default rights that arise because of the parent’s or other affiliate’s entry into bankruptcy proceedings to enable the SIFI to take actions to preserve the operating companies as going concerns. If the actions taken satisfy the conditions established by the Protocol, the termination rights that arose as a result of the SIFI entering bankruptcy proceedings would be permanently overridden.

Naturally, questions have arisen as to the interplay between Section 2 of the Protocol and the safe harbors for swap agreements under the Code. The Code stays, and safe harbors, default rights that arise because a counterparty to an ISDA Master Agreement subject to the Protocol enters proceedings under the Code; it does not stay (and therefore does not need to safe harbor) contracts between non-debtor affiliates and their counterparties. The Protocol only addresses the affiliate contracts, and thus does not alter the scope or application of the safe harbors.

To help interested parties better understand the Protocol, ISDA has developed a detailed FAQ. The full text of the Protocol can be found on ISDA’s website.

ISDA Resolution Stay Protocol: A Brief Overview
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On November 12, 2014, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (“ISDA”) officially released the ISDA 2014 Resolution Stay Protocol (the “Protocol”), a mechanism that contractually imposes a stay on certain default rights in ISDA contracts between adhering parties during the resolution of a significantly important financial institution (SIFI) counterparty or one of its affiliates.

The first section of the Protocol—addressing default rights under Special Resolution Regimes (“SRRs”) (e.g., the U.S.’s OLA and FDIA)—is relatively uncontroversial. It merely ensures that adhering cross-border counterparties will be bound by the preexisting stay provisions of a foreign SRR, even if the jurisdictional limitations of the SRR would normally exempt such cross-border counterparties. This section went into affect for the 18 adhering banks on January 1, 2015.

The second section of the Protocol—addressing default rights under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code—has been met with significantly more contention. This section confines, to a limited extent, the use of currently existing “safe harbors” in the Code, by contractually limiting certain cross-default rights in ISDA contracts in the case of a counterparty’s affiliate’s bankruptcy, so that the affiliate is not also forced into bankruptcy, where close-out rights are safe-harbored. Significantly, this section will not go into effect until further regulations are promulgated by the Federal Reserve and other U.S. regulators. The concept behind the Protocol’s second section is that a failure of one part of a SIFI should not necessarily lead to defaults and close-outs of derivatives and repos sitting in affiliates of the SIFI, if the affiliate is still performing on its obligations.

The HLS Bankruptcy Roundtable has focused on the Code’s safe harbors previously. Click here for an analysis of the effect of the safe harbors on systemic risk; click here for an argument for narrowing the safe harbors for repos.

Congress is also currently considering the issue of the safe harbors in the case of a SIFI failure. Click here and here for previous coverage of currently pending legislation, the Financial Institution Bankruptcy Act, which would impose a short stay on financial contracts in the case of a SIFI resolution under the Bankruptcy Code.

For a full discussion of the Protocol, please see Mayer Brown’s Legal Update, here.

(This post was drafted by Stephanie Massman, J.D. ’15.)

Lehman Bankruptcy Court Issues Safe Harbor Decision
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Authors: Kathryn Borgeson, Mark Ellenberg, Lary Stromfeld, John Thompson

On December 19, 2013, Judge James M. Peck of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York issued his latest decision in the Lehman Brothers cases addressing the scope of the safe harbor provisions of the Bankruptcy Code.  Michigan State Housing Development Authority v. Lehman Brothers Derivatives Products Inc. and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (In re Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.).  Judge Peck’s decision confirms that the contractual provisions specifying the method of calculating the settlement amount under a swap agreement are protected by the Bankruptcy Code’s safe harbors.  The decision follows the reasoning of the amicus brief filed by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (“ISDA”), which was prepared by Cadwalader.  For a full discussion of the case and argument, please continue reading here.